Gun Control Essay - Guns Do Not Kill People Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Guns Do Not Kill People

Many stories like the following occur, but are hardly every published:

Three robbers entered a Commerce City, Colo., residence, one of them pulled a knife, according to officials. The two men and a woman apparently had planned to rob an acquaintance: but the homeowner resisted the threat, drawing his semiautomatic handgun and shooting the two men. After the three fled, they called for medical help from a cousin's house. The police followed shortly thereafter. "As soon as they get out of the hospital, we'll be there to meet and greet them," said Sgt. Craig Coleman of the Adams County Sheriff's Dept. (rifleman)

These are two of many different stories that are produced monthly by the magazine American Rifleman. Every issue gives 4 to 7 stories on how handgun's save lives everyday. There are many people who believe that a handgun can save your life, but there also people who believe that they are just used for bad guys to kill. The Constitution states that we have the right to keep and bare arms, but there are some groups that have decided that is not right. They will do whatever it takes to change Amendment 2.

This year there was a new gun law added to the long list of gun laws. In Colorado and Oregon the law was passed with a huge margin. The law states that you can not buy a gun at a gun show without a background check, and for it to be a gun show there only needs to be 3 or more people. So, in other words many of the police officers in the world will now be breaking the law when the switch guns with other officers. For instance, there are four officers standing around at the police station, and a couple of them decided to try out each others gun for a day or two. Under this new law, the officers have now broken the law. Many gun owners say there is no need for this new law. The NRA and many other pro-gun groups did everything they could try and make sense of it to people. Even after spending almost 2 million dollars, they still failed. (Kleck). Sarah Brady, Chair of Handgun Control, Inc, was quoted when she said, " These two overwhelming victories clearly demonstrate that all Americans, including gun owners, support responsible gun laws which keep criminals from buying guns." This statement which was publicized in a news release, is a complete Hasty Generalization. Just because this law was passed, doesn't mean that every person, even gun owners want more laws. That could not be further from the truth. A ban on handguns will just cause more deaths. (Kleck). Just because handguns are going to be harder for the normal person to obtain, doesn't mean that it will be harder for criminals to get them. A report done by COPS, the true stories of police officers, says that no matter what is done with gun laws, it doesn't stop criminals. One of the men that was arrested said that it would only take him 20 minutes to go out and by a gun off the streets. So, by saying that the new law on gun show loophole will stop criminals from getting guns could not be farther from the truth.

One of the main topics on gun control, is whether or not they are a effective way of self-defense. Who is to say whether or not a gun is a good mean of self defense or not. Well some of those questions are answered by the report done by a criminologist working at Florida State University. A criminologist by the name of Gary Kleck researched data from the Department of Justice while at Florida State University. He learned that victims which have defended themselves with a handgun during a robbery or an assault, have the least chance of being injured, or the crime being finished out. Anti-gun people say you don't need a gun to help save your life. You can just try and escape, reason with the offender, or use physical resistance (other than a handgun), and that will work. That is not true. Gary Kleck discovered by doing all of those things, there is actually a larger chance of injury and the crime being completed. (Kleck). These statistics are the same when it comes to burglaries. Most of the time when the victims resisted with a handgun, there was a less chance of the crime being committed or the victim being hurt.

In Kleck's study only 33 percent of the surviving robbery victims were hurt, about 25 percent did not resist, and 17 percent who used a handgun, were injured. The same comes with assault victims. Of the 30 percent that survived with injury, 27 percent gave to resistance, and only 12 percent that resisted with a handgun were injured. There were no sites to be found that had anything to say against these statements. The major point that Kleck shows is that people were less likely to be injured when they defended themselves with a handgun, than do those who give no resistance at all.

Another topic that is discussed over and over is that of accidental gun shots. Many of the anti-gun groups say that is a major problem with guns. Again Gary Kleck the criminologist says something different. He says they are actually very rare. In is estimations only 2 percent of fatal gun accidents occur during defensive gun use. He estimates only about 30 per year. There are about 2 million defensive gun uses each year, which would mean that fatal gun accidents are less than 1 in about 65,000. Anti-gun groups say to make the gun childproof. But according to Timothy Wheeler it is almost impossible to do so without making it useless to the owner. There is no way to childproof it completely. The most effective way of child proofing is safety education. There are special classes that you can enroll your child in to help ensure safety. They teach the correct way to handle and shoot a gun. (Wheeler).

The percentages of felons who have had an occurrence with an armed victim and have been scared off and not finished their crime is a lot larger than most think. Wheeler learned that 34 percent of felons said they have been ran off, shot at, wounded, or captured by a victim with a handgun. About 69 percent say that they know a criminal who as also been scared off because of an armed victim. Also about 57 percent say that they are more worried about meeting up with an armed person than they are about running into the police.

A lot of the time people are told how bad the violent death rates are. Like a report by the Los Angeles Times. It says that there are over 34,000 gun deaths in the U.S. A lot of these articles are written by people who are against guns, so they make sure they do not give the entire truth. They try to make guns sound a lot worse than they really are. For instance in the Los Angeles Times, the forget to tell everyone that over half of those are actually suicides. (GunCite). This is how it usually is with the anti-gun groups. They only tell part of the story and do not add all of the details. It only tells you that since 1970 the number of guns has been increasing, but they forget to tell you that the homicide rates have not been going up. (GunCite) Also the percentage of people owning guns has gone down from 49 percent to 40 percent, but the violent crimes have risen and fallen. So in fact The number of gun owners does not affect how many crimes are committed. Another report says that guns are about 43 more likely to kill family members than to kill a criminal. But they leave out that of those 43 deaths, 86 percent (37) were suicides.

The gun war has been going on for years. Every person has a different point on how guns should be dealt with. Ever since the beginning of man the constitution says that we have the right to keep and bare arms. People will always be trying to get rid of handguns, and there will always be people that will be fighting to save them. No matter what is said there is one quote from the National Rifle Association that should be remembered "Guns do not kill people, people kill people."